| Title | : | The Discoveries: Great Breakthroughs in 20th-Century Science, Including the Original Papers |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 037571345X |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780375713453 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 594 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 2005 |
The Discoveries: Great Breakthroughs in 20th-Century Science, Including the Original Papers Reviews
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My brain is like a food chopper mostly, nothing really exits in the same way it entered. So as I write, much of the scientific discoveries in this book are in the process of getting mixed up in the great beef stew of my mind. But if you expect to become a master of theoretical physics and molecular biology by reading this book, well, I'd call you crazy as a quark!
But despite the complexity of the theories and experiments described, Alan Lightman is great at providing simple images that unscientifikall folk like me can grasp with at least a healthy portion of understanding. And best of all, behind each discovery Lightman shows, with love, the unique individual, their personality, brilliance, triumphs and fears. What emerges is a unique and untold drama of the 20th century, where curiosity and the pursuit of knowledge unfolds against the backdrop of world wars and racism, where Lightman gathers many perspectives on how the disciplines of art and science are related and connected in the pursuit of knowledge and truth. Brilliant book.
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Although the author tried his very best to explain the 23 most important scientific discoveries of the 20th Century, some of it went over my head. But I still enjoyed the book immensely. Lightman describes the process and the personalities of the scientists or scientists involved in a way the reader can appreciate the sparks of genius and insight that fuel scientific progress. Albert Einstein, Neils Bohr, Alexander Fleming, Linus Pauling, James Watson, Francis Crick and Edwin Hubble are all in the book but some are people few have likely every heard of such as Henrietta Leaviit, Barbara McClintock and Lise Meitner and of Rosalind Franklin who got short if any attention for their key contributions.
This book is not as easy read and a chapter or two at a time is the best approach to it so you try to grasp all the information the author lays out for the reader. The book is a real testament to Lightman's knowledge and communications skills that can delve deeply into such different topics and explain them for us. -
I didn't read every chapter, but focused on those charting the rise of modern cosmology and quantum mechanics, when physics became puzzling, to say the least, with the subatomic world making, by the standards of Newtonian laws of motion, no sense whatsoever. Meanwhile, the universe exploded out exponentially in size and age and Einstein's work utterly shattered Newton's laws at the macro level.
As far as I'm concerned, if you want to look at modern estrangement, you'd do just as well to look at the arguments within quantum mechanics, about the seemingly incomprehensible nature of what is happening at the very basic structural level, as read a monument of modernist literature. Here it is in its most puzzling, cold, and sometimes unnerving form.
Lightman has a light touch, he's very good at simplifying without dumbing down the original scientific papers, which are included. Some, no, all of them were a challenge for me to read, but I found it fascinating to look at what could be described as a series of intellectual switches, which, when turned on, introduced us to a physical world we could scarce imagine.
It strikes me that one must be scientifically literate at a basic level at this stage of things, if only because there is so much futuristic nonsense out there you need to inoculate yourself to it.
Finally, there are some very helpful videos on Youtube trying to explain much of the work and theory found within this book. If you want to go off on a bit of an adventure in the head, this is a good book for doing so, particularly if you look to other sources, like those Youtube videos, for additional thoughts on the subject matter. -
as the title suggests, this book is an excellent review of major scientific discoveries that occurred during the 20th century. the fields of research included physics, physiology, astronomy, molecular biology, biochemistry, and others. i would highly recommend it for scientists and non-scientists alike as lightman does a great job of describing the breakthrough.
each chapter consists of two parts: the original published manuscript describing the work in the scientists own words preceded by a short essay by lightman laying out what was known previously, how the scientists involved made the discovery, and how their discovery fundamentally changed how people thought about their world.
lastly, due to the fact that each chapter is essentially independent, the book is easy to read alongside another book. definitely pick this one up and check it out even if you have a long "to read" list!!! -
I have an ever increasing respect for Alan Lightman's talent and how he applies that talent. This is the kind of writting that, if framed correctly, could turn a whole catagory of people onto the world of science because he humanizes it so brilliantly. I wish my highschool physics and chemistry teachers had taught with this book.
My only complaint was that as a layman, reading through this a little less than rigourously and without a teacher, it got somewhat technical at times, even in Lightman's explanations (I confess to skipping most of the primary source papers). Still, each chapter managed to bring me to a state of complete awe with the world around me and left me wanting to learn more.
I would love to get recommendations of similar books if anyone has some. -
Excelente livro, edição sofrível. Não é uma review do livro em si e sim da edição em português.
A versão em inglês apresenta os artigos científicos originais. Dá até para entender a ausência, tendo em vista a dificuldade de reunir todos os textos técnicos traduzidos. Infelizmente o texto várias vezes faz referências a gráficos, trechos, tabelas, figuras e equações dos textos originais. É frustrante ler essas partes do texto em que ele discute objetos que não está disponíveis (em alguns casos são citados termos de equações que simplesmente não estão lá). No mínimo, deviam incluir esses trechos citados. O entendimento fica, naturalmente, prejudicado e fragmentado sem eles.
Resumindo, se você puder busque a edição em inglês ou espere por uma nova edição. -
This book was so good! I loved the insights the author gave before presenting each original paper. Really gives insight into the minds of some of the most important discoveries through time. I recommend it to any scientist or anyone who is interested in learning the history of science.
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Took me half a year but I finished it! While a lot of the science was above my head (despite the author's best efforts to make it accessible to the layperson), I found the process of discovery fascinating. Well worth the read.
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A unique telling of discoveries taken for granted today, including the original papers / articles where they were chronicled for the first time. Very interesting read
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How did all the great minds in science make their breakthroughs? Were they all from well-to-do families? Did they struggle for years? It is great to hear the incredible variations in the lives of these 20+ scientists. A brief history is given that focuses on the uniqueness of their life and what inspired them toward there greatest accomplishment. This is then followed by an exact reproduction of their famed published paper that won them their Nobel Prize or whatever incredible scientific award. This is easy to just open to anybody and read a single person's story anytime.
Table of Contents:
1. The Quantum
- - - On the Theory of the Energy Distribution Law of the Normal Spectrum, by Max Planck (1900)
2. Hormones
- - - The Mechanism of Pancreatic Secretion, by William Bayliss and Ernest Starling (1902)
3. The Particle Nature Of Light
- - - On a Heuristic Point of View Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light, by Albert Einstein (1905)
4. Special Relativity
- - - On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies, by Albert Einstein (1905)
5. The Nucleus Of The Atom
- - - The Scattering of alpha and beta Particles by Matter and the Structure of the Atom, by Ernest Rutherford (1911)
6. The Size Of The Cosmos
- - - Periods of 25 Variable Stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud, by Henrietta Leavitt (1912)
7. The Arrangement Of Atoms In Solid Matter
- - - Interference Phenomena with Rn̲tgen Rays, by W. Friedrich, P. Knipping, and M. von Laue (1912)
8. The Quantum Atom
- - - On the Constitution of Atoms and Molecules, by Niels Bohr (1913)
9. The Means Of Communication Between Nerves
- - - On the Humoral Transmission of the Action of the Cardiac Nerve, by Otto Loewi (1921)
10. The Uncertainty Principle
- - - On the Physical Content of Quantum Kinematics and Mechanics, Werner Heisenberg (1927)
11. The Chemical Bond
- - - The Shared-Electron Chemical Bond, by Linus Pauling (1928)
12. The Expansion Of The Universe
- - - A Relation Between Distance and Radial Velocity Among Extra-Galactic Nebulae, by Edwin Hubble (1929)
13. Antibiotics
- - - On the Antibacterial Action of Cultures of Penicillium, with Special Reference to Their Use in the Isolation of B. Influenzae , by Alexander Fleming (1929)
14. The Means Of Production Of Energy In Living Organisms
- - - The Role of Citric Acid in Intermediate Metabolism in Animal Tissues, by Hans Krebs and W. A. Johnson (1937)
15. Nuclear Fission
- - - Concerning the Existence of Alkaline Earth Metals Resulting from Neutron Irradiation of Uranium, by Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann (1939) and
- - - Disintegration of Uranium by Neutrons: A New Type of Nuclear Reaction, by Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch (1939)
16. The Movability Of Genes
- - - Mutable Loci in Maize, Barbara McClintock (1948)
17. The Structure Of Dna
- - - Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids, by James D. Watson and Francis H. C. Crick (1953) and
- - - Molecular Configuration in Sodium Thymonucleate, by Rosalind E. Franklin and R. G. Gosling (1953)
18. The Structure Of Proteins
- - - Structure of Hm̆oglobin, by Max F. Perutz, M. G. Rossmann, Ann F. Cullis, Hilary Muirhead, Georg Will, and A. C. T. North (1960)
19. Radio Waves From The Big Bang
- - - A Measurement of Excess Antenna Temperature at 4080 Mc/s, by Arno A. Penzias and Robert W. Wilson and
- - - Cosmic Black-Body Radiation, by Robert H. Dicke, P. James E. Peebles, Peter G. Roll, and David T. Wilkinson (1965)
20. A Unified Theory Of Forces
- - - A Model of Leptons," by Steven Weinberg (1967)
21. Quarks: A Tiniest Essence Of Matter
- - - Observed Behavior of Highly Inelastic Electron-Proton Scattering, by M. Breidenbach, J. I. Friedman, H. W. Kendall, E. D. Bloom, D. H. Coward, H. DeStaebler, J. Drees, L. W. Mo, and R. E. Taylor (1969)
22. The Creation Of Altered Forms Of Life
- - - Biochemical Method of Inserting New Genetic Information into DNA of Simian Virus 40, by David A. Jackson, Robert H. Symons, and Paul Berg (1972) -
This was pretty good. I think it is easy to forget how much that is now considered pretty basic scientific knowledge, such as hormones, were pretty much unknown at the beginning of the 20th century. In general, despite being highly cut down, the actual papers were a bit too technical for me to do more than skim (though that was usually interesting), other than for the biological papers, but the difference in styles was something that struck me, especially as there is so little variation in modern papers - pretty much all of them are in the passive voice, and although the order of sections may vary, they will generally go abstract, introduction, methods, results and conclusion. Here, not only was there more variation in presentation, there was a lot more in style, both of the "I decided to do this" kind, and how the results were promoted, some people saying "well, this might be important", others being much bolder and basically saying "Hey world, I just chaged you forever"
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Lightman's intro to the papers are better than the papers themselves. Anything by Lightman is worth reading. I may or may not actually read the papers themselves. Just the choices he had to make are interesting.
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A collection of some of the most groundbreaking and ultimately important scientific papers in the past 100 years. Definitely not a book to read cover to cover but to peruse when you have time.
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loved it!
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original text of the most significant science publications, but it's tough, technical reading
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1st edition, signed by author
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A must read for anyone interested in science! I know understand the biology bits better and have a passing knowledge of the physics papers.
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science in it's original form...a couple dozen fundamental ideas with their original papers included and explained.
I pick it up and read a bit now and then.
